MULTIPLE TRANSITIONS: A YOUNG CHILD’S POINT OF VIEW ABOUT FOSTER CARE AND ADOPTION

(Video)

This video was written and Produced by Michael Trout, Director of the Infant-Parent Institute in Champaign, Ill. (c) 1997.

It provides a real, I mean really real, look into the experience of a child in foster care, and insight into what such a child thinks being adopted is all about. It opens the foster adoptive parents to how the child views her or his world. This powerful video illustrates profoundly the content of many of the articles on this site. I hope it will have the added impact to create new prospectives in the understanding and handling of foster children everywhere.

Foster care as it exists today is psychologically and emotionally damaging. It will never be okay for a child to be in foster care. But radical improvements throughout the system can make it safer for children in state care. Fewer moves and long term care with better trained, screened, and monitored caregivers is a start.

This video is powerful and emotional. Settle in, folks. It’s going to be a bumpy ride… Deb

After you view the video below click the back button to return to How Does Your Child Grow and leave a comment.

1. Safety The child is a danger to himself and others
2. Permanency Disrupted or dissolved
3. Well Being Increased emotional trauma

1. Safety is the paramount concern that must guide all child welfare services.
Adoption creates unsafe living conditions for adoptive family without safety net.

2. Foster care is temporary.
Adoption is temporary.

3. Permanency efforts should begin as soon as the child enters care.
Adoption preservation efforts should begin as soon as the severity of the child’s mental
health needs become known. Parents have access and funding.

4. The child welfare system should focus on results and accountability.
Results show that permanency through adoption is at risk. No state departments are
currently accountable. There is no synergy between state departments.

5. Innovative approaches are needed to achieve safety, permanency, and well-being.
Safety, permanency, and well-being are addressed prior to adoption, but not after.

Slide 9
Federal Incentive Payments

FACT: Illinois receives $4000 for every finalized adoption and $6000 for every special needs adoption.

While the generation of ASFA children grow up, the same government that put families together is forcing them apart.

FACT: Illinois receives NOTHING for Adoption Preservation for families subject to disruption or dissolution because of pre-adoptive neglect, abuse, and trauma.

FACT: Families tried to resolve this issue in years passed with the Keeping Families Together Act, which failed to pass Congress is two consecutive sessions

Slide 10
THE BOTTOM LINE

The state of Illinois needs federal funding
for intensive in-home, community based, and residential treatment
for children who are at risk
of re-entering the system
for a subsequent time
due to adoptive parent’s inability
to access appropriate clinical services.

Written by Toni Hoy, Illinois adoptive parent
Slide 1
ASFA’s Original Goals
The Adoptive and Safe Families Act of 1997 was established with three goals and five principals in mind. The goals were safety, permanency, and well-being. The principals were as follows (ASFA Goals):
Safety is the paramount concern that must guide all child welfare services.
Foster care is temporary.
Permanency planning efforts should begin as soon as the child enters care.
The child welfare system must focus on results and accountability.
Innovative approaches are needed to achieve the goals of safety, permanency, and well-being
Adoptions Increase
In 1997, President Clinton challenged states to double the number of adoptions within five years. Illinois met his goal in the first year. States receive millions of dollars from the federal government for the purpose of increasing adoptions.

Slide 2
FACT: Adoption Excellence Awards
2002 Illinois took the lead winning 5 of 18 awards
2003 Illinois won 3 more awards including One Church, One Child
FACT: From 1996-2000, adoptions rose 78%.

The ASFA Generation Enters Puberty
Thirteen years later, numerous children are re-entering the system because
foster/adopt parents cannot gain access or funding for their mental, behavioral,
and emotional needs due to pre-adoptive trauma, neglect, physical abuse, and
substance abuse.

According to the Child Welfare League of America, studies show that mental,
emotional, and behavioral disorders have a direct correlation with the trauma of
being in the system due to:
Prenatal substance abuse effect
Post natal or infant neglect or physical abuse
Trauma of being placed
Impermanence resulting from multiple foster care placements

Slide 3
According to CWLA

FACT: 70% of foster children have behavioral disorders

FACT: 1/3 foster children have severe emotional disorders

Families Hit the Wall
Families are unable to access the degree of intensive in-home and community based services to maintain safe living standards in their homes. Residential treatment, even when recommended by numerous therapists and other medical professionals, is almost impossible to obtain without trading custody rights in exchange.

According to a study by the U.S. General Accounting Office, 12,700 children became wards of the state or entered the juvenile justice system because of their mental and/or emotional conditions could not be controlled in a family setting with the aid of outpatient services. Only 28 states responded, none of which had the highest number of children. Most were male, adolescents, had multiple problems, and were a danger to self or others.

According to the report, these children, who came from all income levels, stressed their parents and sibling to an unhealthy degree, made it difficult for parents to nurture and care for their other children, and made it difficult for parents to hold jobs.

Slide 4
According to Illinois Mental Health Planning and Advisory Council 2009

FACT: 94% children were DENIED medically necessary residential treatment as prescribed by a practitioner of the healing arts.

FACT: Illinois licenses residential treatment for children with drug and alcohol addictions, but not mental and behavioral disorders, rendering the available residential treatment centers Medicaid ineligible.

FACT: Families are being forced to seek safety for their families by trading their custody rights for mental healthcare.

FACT: Families are being encouraged to relinquish custody by mental health professionals, who are unable to help the children on an out-patient basis.

Slide 5
Heart Wrenching Choices

When parents have exhausted all out-patient services and come to the realization that their child must receive treatment in a residential behavioral health center, in order to protect themselves and their other children, they are left with four agonizing choices:

Choice Consequence

Pay $150,000 per year Unable or go bankrupt

Bring the child home Subject family to danger

File criminal charges against child Punishment vs. treatment

Leave child at a psych hospital Charged withneglect/abuse

Slide 6
Aftermath of Custody Relinquishment

Parents are subject to a DCFS Neglect/Abuse Investigation
Parents are falsely accused of neglect and/or abuse
Parents may be falsely indicated of neglect or abuse
Juvenile Court may elect to amend the charges to no fault dependency
No fault dependency cases are viewed in Juvenile Court similarly to neglect/abuse cases, stigmatizing loving parents
DCFS replaces parents in normal parenting decisions
Parents are subject to ongoing re-investigation and re-interrogation
CASA, GAL, DCFS, and the state’s attorney may side against the parents
Juvenile Court may elect to terminate parental rights

Mal-effect on Children

Foster-Adopt children are abandoned for the SECOND time
Children spend months in limbo during child welfare processing
Foster-Adopt children are kept in the dark during these months
DCFS does not allow visits during this period of time, frightening children
DCFS houses children in gang infested group homes vs. residential centers
DCFS may move the child multiple times
Child experiences loss of his main support system
Child manipulates new adults for self gain, causing setbacks in treatment

Slide 7
CONTRADICTIONS
DCFS removes children from homes where adults are unsafe to children
DCFS leaves children in homes where children are unsafe towards siblings

DCFS puts adoptive families together through adoption
DCFS has no plan for preserving families who adopted children with the most intensive needs

DCFS boasts the “best interests of the child”
DCFS takes away the child’s strongest support system, his family

Child has bonding and attachment issues due to pre-adoptive neglect
Separation from family increases vs. decreases bonding and attachment issues

For children adopted privately or through a foster care system, transition, trust and feeling securely loved are issues they may struggle with into adulthood. It is important to remember, not all children are affected equally by the experience of tramatic events in their lives, but all are affected. The foundation of your parent/child relationship will strengthen according to your knowledge of:

In my experience, parents approaching issues of transition, trust, and emotional security with sensitivity, empathy, and right information will make all the difference in your new relationship with your child. You, the parent, are responsible for creating an optimal environment promoting bonding and attachment enabling your child to experience, perhaps for the first time, the life calming comfort of permanence.

TRANSITIONS

“Home… Hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one.

“Home…I can’t say where it is but I know I’m going home

That’s where the hurt is.” U2

Transition means a passage from one form, state, style, or place to another. For our children, regardless of age, this may have meant multiple moves from one home to another repeated many times. The moves result in loss of toys, a familiar bed, caregivers, parents, siblings, or a special smell of a bedtime blanket left behind.

Even infants experience deep loss and depression. Having been only briefly united with their birth mother a newborn already is familiar with their mothers heart beat, smell, and voice. The loss of a parent this early in life is often called a primal wound. It strikes a blow at the heart of attachment between child and caregiver. Just as a widow or widower will resist washing their spouses pillowcase or favorite shirt to maintain some form of comforting physical presence in a time of grieving , an infant or child experiences this same deep grieving through the loss of a former caregiver.

To understand this child an adoptive parent must be more attentive to suble behavioral cues. A caregiver may notice aversive or poor eye contact. The infant or child may react negatively to touch, textures, food, water, or sensations of cold or heat, by suddenly withdrawing a hand, grimacing, or stiffening the body. He may appear to have a ‘flat affect’, that is he fails to smile or become excited upon seeing his parent. The result is a plain or flat facial affect. He may not take delight in discovery as other infants of similar age. A parent may notice periods of prolonged crying or fussy behaviors hard to comfort, and for which there is no other discernable cause. This can be misinterpreted as colic. The depressed or stressed infant and child may display unusual sleeping patterns as in an infant who sleeps more than the 16-18 hours considered normal, or less than what may be needed for good health. All of this parenting uncertainty and turmoil can wear hard on parent, marriage, and family life. The parents may begin to believe they are not able to parent this child, or that they are “doing something wrong.”

EARLY EXPERIENCES

One mother shares her young child’s journey.

“When my child was four days old, his mother left the hospital. He remained in the NICU for the next 10 days. Although the nurses tried their best in making time to hold him, I know he did not get what he needed to feel safe and connected. By the time he came to us at two months he had been in two other placements, making us his fourth since birth. It was a difficult transition for both of us. Even at three years old he remains very clingly and has many fears surrounding separation and sleeping that are much more intense than one might be prepared for with a child.”

Another parent relates her story.

“My daughter came to us when she was 8 years old. Her history stated she had been in six foster placements prior to coming to us. She would stuff all the food she could into her mouth at one time. She also would think nothing of reaching into your plate for whatever she wanted. She is very inflexible to changes of any kind. A trip to the park can be a terrifying event for her. If she believes she misbehaves in any way, she gets her coat and waits at the door prepared to be sent away. Much of her behavior didn’t make any sense to us. Over time and with further education we understood the behaviors as a manifestation of her earlier traumatic experiences. The repeated deprivation and loss of everyone, place, and thing in her life had impacted her so deeply. She always felt she had to fight for her life. When I began to realize what she had gone through, I understood why she seemed afraid to trust us. She couldn’t know what permanent meant. She couldn’t know for certain when she was taken somewhere that she would be able to return. It has taken years of reassurring her.”

It is clear what our kids go through in their young lives is sometimes far beyond our personal experience and understanding. It is also clear that it is beyond their control. These experiences have shaped their understanding of life, home, family, and relationship. What can you do to ease the process of transitioning your child into a permanent home?

Establishing trust between you and your child will go a long way to heal past hurts. But don’t expect it will happen overnight. Remember, each time your child has been moved in the system, she has left bits and pieces of her life, belongings, family, heritage, and culture behind. Even at very young ages, our children have experienced relationship and family as broken and painful. This type of loss is a deep hurt that heals very slowly. But you CAN heal it.

Children need to know they will be safe. They need to know you will be safe. They will only learn it if you model it for them, again, and again, and again. You will be the parent who shows this child what it means to have a parent’s limitless love for him. He learns to see his value mirrored in your eyes and in your words. It is then, that his heart will open and painful cracks left by past trauma will begin to fill.

TRUST

Children do well when they can trust that all of their needs will be consistently met by the adults who care for them. What do children need?

Food/nutrition to establish good health in mind and body

Warmth/material, physical, and emotional

Physical touch/hugs and tender affection from caregiver

Responsive care and predictability/knowing the adult will provide and take care of them in a timely manner

Love/secure and uncompromised connections with other human beings who are constant in their lives

Boundaries and structure/limits with respect, love, and understanding in order to create an environment of safety, learning, physical and spiritual growth

Joy, play, and laughter/regular opportunities for optimal bonding and attachment with caregivers to occur

This passage from the well-loved Winnie the Pooh series sums up the needs of all children for trust.

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.

“Pooh!” He whispered.

“Yes, Piglet?”

“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw.

“I just wanted to be sure of you.” A.A. Milne

LOVE

Children can experience love as a condition of care or attention. “If I am ‘good’, perhaps I can stay here.” “If I do what they want, maybe they will love me.” They have neither had opportunity nor ability to understand the events of their lives. Alternately, children may display destructive behaviors in an attempt to keep from being hurt again. “If I make them send me away now, I won’t have time to let myself like them.” While some children may consciously construct negative situations to protect themselves from further emotional pain, many hurt kids act out from an unconscious place of primitive self-survival.

Become a model and teacher of what it means to give love and acceptance without limit to your children

When a child has a skewed perception of parental love because of early experiences, it is the knowing parent who effects positive change in a child’s thought, and uncovers the truth in her heart. Your clear destination is in front of you. What will happen when parents and child connect? One wonderful word: FAMILY.

For more information and classes in these topic areas, go to the Events Calendar of this site. Or visit www.TogetherAtLastFamily.com for payment online and registration. New classes are forming NOW for September 2010! Conveniently located in the S. New Jersey/Deleware/Philadelphia area. If you prefer a private or group telecourse, please contact me above or at DeborahBeasley20@yahoo.com

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